


a loyal heart

by izadreamer



Series: Internal Tangles [6]
Category: Tangled (2010), Tangled: The Series (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Study, During Canon, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loyalty, POV Animal, POV Outsider, rudiger is a good boy, rudiger on varian and his turn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-22 00:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14925710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izadreamer/pseuds/izadreamer
Summary: There is something wrong with Rudiger’s boy.





	a loyal heart

**Author's Note:**

> I am never writing a fic from the pov of an animal character again. This was…. Far more difficult than I thought it would be. I was a Fool……..
> 
> Anyways I love Rudiger to bits and pieces, so I had to do at least one fic for him. I think I have a fic for almost every main character in this series now?? Hella

There is something wrong with Rudiger’s boy.

In truth, there has been something wrong for a while now. Ever since the storm, when the earth got cold and the skies became angry, almost nothing has gone right. He does not like to think of it—his fur still bristles when he remembers the frightening expression on his boy’s face, that day the boy saw his father in amber—but the more days that pass, the more afraid Rudiger becomes.

Rudiger’s boy has always been a little off, even before Rudiger was called Rudiger, and when the boy was not Rudiger’s boy and simply just ‘the boy.’ Always the human to leave his doors unlocked but traps on the floors, but never one to harm any of the creatures that stumbled in his home. His dwelling always smelled of smoke and chemicals, things that made Rudiger’s tail twitch, but the boy himself was kind enough to make up for it. The other animals had called him boy-of-smoke, and the humans had called him alchemist, son, Varian, dangerous. He was a human youngling, too, which made his many titles all the more unique. Most humans didn’t have so many names when they were small.

Raccoons are not like humans; they do not need names. But even raccoons know that names are important to humans, that names are a human invention, a claim to identity and purpose. Like all of his species, the raccoon had not found names all that notable, but then, that too was before the boy. For the boy had taken the raccoon and called him Rudiger,  and the raccoon had his first name, and he found he rather liked it. Or maybe he just liked the way the boy said it, like ‘Rudiger’ was a dear friend or equal.

It worked out well, the raccoon had thought. If he was to be Rudiger then he would name the boy as well, and thus the boy became Rudiger’s boy, and for a time the raccoon was happy with that. He had to live in the dwelling-of-smoke-and-chemicals, but he got apples and head rubs. And even though he never understood what the boy was saying, the boy always spoke to him, spoke as if Rudiger could understand, and that was nice too.

When the strange rocks sprouted up and cut into Rudiger’s paw, it had been his boy who took him in and patched him up with the same skills he used to keep the raccoon and his brethren out. The boy had a nice smile, the raccoon had thought then, and so he’d come back again and again until suddenly the raccoon had a Name and a Boy, and a place to sit on the boy’s shoulders, and it was nice and so he stayed. He had the boy, a friend, and raccoons are not known for loyalty but Rudiger thought that maybe he could try. Living here was better than he’d given it credit for.

It was good, to be loved.

Things are not so nice now. It is the rocks, Rudiger is certain. The rocks that smell like magic-anger-loss and run through the whole human village like an infestation of fleas. The rocks have torn up his boy’s home, and they have torn up Rudiger’s forest, and they have destroyed his favorite tree with his favorite apples. And Rudiger is afraid, he is so afraid, because for the first time it occurs to him that rocks may have taken over his boy, too.

Rudiger can think of no other explanation for it. The rocks took the father-of-Rudiger’s-boy and they must have taken the boy too, when Rudiger was hiding, when he ran away from the growing amber. Rudiger’s boy doesn’t smile much anymore, if at all; his lab smells awful all the time. The boy is tired and angry and doesn’t talk to Rudiger like he used to, barely ever talks at all. Rudiger’s boy is becoming a stranger and there is nothing nice about any of it, and all the apples in the world are not worth this.

Rudiger ran away once, and the rocks took his boy, and Rudiger is sorry about that—he is so very sorry. But he is also so very scared. It would be easy, to run away again. Raccoons are not known for loyalty.

But this is Rudiger’s boy, Rudiger’s boy who helped him and picked him and named him, Rudiger’s boy who could be so much more. And Rudiger loves him. He loves his boy.

He doesn’t run, in the end. He ran once and lost his boy to the black stone, and Rudiger is afraid of his boy and afraid for his boy, but most of all he is afraid that should he run away again, he will lose his boy forever.

Rudiger is afraid. But he takes his boy’s serum and he fights his boy’s battles because he knows his boy will never truly hurt him. And when the woman-with-crown is being eaten by the amber and the girl-with-sunlight-hair is crying out in pain, Rudiger breaks out the chameleon and gives him the boy’s special serum because he knows his boy is better than this.

They take Rudiger’s boy away, in the end, after everything. They take him away because there is something wrong with Rudiger’s boy, there is an ugliness in him that wasn’t there before. They take him and put the cold metal chains around his arms and load him into a cart that smells like death and blood.

Rudiger runs to him, jumps on his shoulders, curls around his neck. He paws at his boy’s face in comfort.

His boy does not acknowledge him; his boy never acknowledges him anymore. He doesn’t speak to Rudiger or make pretty inventions or laugh at Rudiger’s silly antics. But neither does he push Rudiger away.

And maybe this, in the end, is why Rudiger is still here—because this boy is still Rudiger’s boy at heart, and Rudiger loves him, and so he will never, ever leave. Raccoons are not known for loyalty or love, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have it.

The humans may scorn him, lock him away, leave him behind—but this boy is Rudiger’s boy, and names mean something to this raccoon after all.

He curls close to his boy, digs small claws into his collarbone, presses against his side—and he stays.

**Author's Note:**

> [If you wanna rec this fic, you can reblog it here!!](http://izaswritings.tumblr.com/post/174867897777/title-a-loyal-heart-synopsis-there-is-something) Also, if you have any questions or just want to talk, [my tumblr](http://izaswritings.tumblr.com) is always open!!
> 
> Any thoughts?


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